Page 44 of Cold Foot Komodo

“Dammit, Reed.” Mayer swallowed audibly. “I got a lady now. A normie. I’m doing okay, fucking finally. I can’t go back.”

“I don’t want to either. I met someone too, but if there’s a kid that’s mine?” He let the rest trail off. Mayer would understand well enough.

“Dammit,” Mayer murmured again. “Look, let me reach out to Jack and Drake and see if they’ve heard anything. Don’t get your hopes up though, all right? They’re out of the Bank just the same as you and me. Give me a couple days.”

“I appreciate it.”

“If I do this, we’re even. No more favors. My debt is paid.”

Reed huffed a laugh. “If you think sending a couple texts makes up for what you motherfuckers did to me, you’ve lost your mind. Your debt will be paid because I don’t want to talk to you any more than you want to talk to me. I know what this will do to you, Mayer. You’ll have to go home tonight and face your normie woman with ghosts in your eyes, and hide what you’re really going through because you’ll be remembering what y’all did. You’ll have to face those feelings of locking me away underground in Alaska for years, just so Farrah could get what she wanted. You have to shoulder the guilt of what happened to me, and you have to accept the fact that I never ratted any of you out. I just took it so you all could go on and rebuild your lives. And then…” He shook his head and huffed an empty, single laugh. “And then you have to deal with the guilt that none ofyou asked what the fuck was happening when Cold Foot didn’t release me, and they just kept me locked away after my release date. So no, we will never be even, traitor. I was your Second, but even more important? I was your friend. I don’t need to come after any of you. Your shame will do it for me.” Reed hung up the phone, and slammed his open palm against the steering wheel a few times to rid himself of some of the rage.

God, he hated this. He hated going back. Hated old memories. Hated everything that had happened.

But most of all, he hated that his old life was haunting his new one. He hated that his past had slammed down a wall between himself and Sasha.

He could feel the old him, and he’d worked so damn hard to become who he was now. The old him didn’t have a place here.

Every single thing that was dragging him back to his old self pissed him off.

He connected a call to Wreck.

“Yep,” Wreck answered.

“I need a meeting.”

There was a pause. “With me?”

“With everyone in the Crew. Not Sasha, and not Beth.” No humans, just in case Reed lost his control and Changed.

“Okay,” Wreck drawled. “Is everything all right?”

“No.” There was no point in trying to lie to the phoenix shifter. He would hear it easily.

“Okay, I’ll call one for tonight. The floor will be yours.”

“Can’t wait,” Reed said dryly, and then hung up.

He would ask the right questions and find the rat by the end of the night.

He’d made the mistake before of allowing Bank members misbehave without being checked, hoping they would correct their path. He’d trusted people he cared about to come back todoing the right thing, and he’d stood by for too long, until it was too late for them to be salvageable anymore.

Not this time.

If someone in this Crew had betrayed him, they would be held accountable.

No second, third, and fourth chances this time around.

Chapter Twelve

“Hi!” Sasha called, waving to Beth.

Beth had been watching the door and waved back with a big old greeting grin on her face. Wreck’s mom was radiant in the natural light from the window by the table she was sitting at.

The 406 Saloon was dimly lit, and had three rooms. The center room, where Beth had chosen to sit, had an enormous stone fireplace with a roaring fire going. The room to the right was the bar. She could see an old pool table from here as she took the seat across from Beth.

“This place is awesome,” she exclaimed.

“Oh, you should see in there,” Beth said, pointing to the bar-side. “They have a jukebox in the back, and casino machines and everything. And cowboys.” She arched her eyebrows. “Some of those men look about my age.”

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